


Fractured

by HerbalMaiden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Adult Language, F/M, Hospitals, modern a/u
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 10:58:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12957747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerbalMaiden/pseuds/HerbalMaiden
Summary: Sandor Clegane is an angry, military veteran starting a new career field. His first night on the job, and his life is changed for ever....even if he doesn't realize it at first.





	Fractured

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are love! Just a fun little one shot.
> 
> I own nothing by the One God, George R.R. Martin. I write for pleasure, not profit!

Fractures

At thirty-two years old, Sandor Clegane’s life took a sharp turn. Three a.m. in a triage room at Kingslanding’s largest metropolitan hospital, and he hadn’t even realized it was happening until it had become no more than a memory.

He had only been out of the army for four years, and Sandor had been at his worst. He was a mean son of a bitch, and a man that most of the medical community turned a cold shoulder towards after speaking to him, or more often after coming face to face with his scars. 

After his honorable discharge under the command of General Tywin Lannister and six tours in Asshai, Sandor had returned to Westeros. The last time he came back with more scars and a noticeable limp from a prosthetic that left sores at the end of each day. 

And he had drank…and drank some more to forget the wars, until two years had passed.

Another bar fight to try to prove to himself he was still a soldier, still the Hound, not the gimp that was too useless to even train greenboys at the Casterly Rock Academy. He had sat in the drunk tank, painfully sober, and stared at the coin in between his fingers for his one call. 

His therapist had picked him up that night, paid his bail, only under the condition that he and Sandor would make a plan for his new life, and that he would follow it. 

Sandor sobered up and used his GI bill to enter a radiology program in Kingslanding. Two years of school and clinical courses that had overrun his life so thoroughly that he’d forgotten how much he missed the oblivion brought by red wine. His therapist had put in a good word and gotten him his first job after passing the registry. 

He was grouchy, hated the other workers at the hospital, and it was only Sandor’s first day as an official radiologic technologist.

Clegane had taken the overnight shift, knowing the emergency room would only need him for dire cases, maybe the occasional OR case. And better yet, he would get to spend the majority of his night alone in the reading room, where it was cold and dark and even the cleaning crew avoided visiting. 

That first night, it wasn’t until three a.m. when the first alert of his evening appeared on the monitor. A simple enough order: shoulder and humerus x-rays on a twenty-year-old female. He groaned and rubbed the weariness from his face. Probably some young, stupid chick partying it up on a Saturday night at the clubs, and her heels and martinis had failed as a combination. 

Sandor was distracted from his thoughts as he heard sniggering from the CT girls two doors down. Despite the limp, Sandor Clegane still maintained a soldier’s stealth. 

“Here she is again,” the first voice said. “Like clockwork, almost every two weeks in the middle of the night.”

“Always an accident, she says.” 

“And never even manages to recycle a story!” the first girl snorted with laughter. 

“Something fresh! Wonder what it will be this time, what can beat the sleepwalking story!”

“And wait til she gets and eyeful of the new guy!” the one cackled. 

Sandor pushed himself from the wall, he felt the familiar scowl on his face deepen even further. It didn’t take a genius to know who the new guy was. The walk down the fluorescent illuminated halls made his limp and sores at the end of his stump that was once his femur ache all the more. 

The first thing Sandor noticed about his patient had been before he’d even reached the door. Her hair was fire in the stark clinical white environment, a flame that called to him rather than send him for the hills. It spilled freely down her back in waves, ebbing and flowing as she breathed. It wasn’t a fake bottle red, or a ginger copper. It was deep and dark like the leaves of the endangered weirwood trees. His feet carried him forward like he was a moth, unable to fight the urge to burn himself.

“Ms. Stark?” Sandor asked from the doorway, drawing her from whatever thoughts made her stare blankly ahead at the white wall. “My name is Sandor, I’ll be taking you to x-ray.”

Sandor wasn’t a man who found himself without words, but when she turned her eyes toward him, his breath left his chest in a whoosh. He thought her hair had been vibrant, but her eyes were a bright blue, like icicles in the sunlight on a clear winter morning.

“My name and date of birth are Sansa Stark, February 22nd, 1995,” she murmured after a moment. 

He glanced at the requisition in his large hand, verifying the information. “Very well,” he replied gruffly. He took a step closer, his bulk taking up most of the space in the small triage room. She shrunk away from him slightly. 

Sandor’s face came into full view, his long hair did little to hide the scars. He could see her shiver despite the oversized knit sweater she was swallowed by. He folded the req and shoved it in his scrub pocket. “Are you able to walk to the room?” 

She breathed audibly as he took a step back. “Yes.” 

“Follow me.” 

No one watched as they made their way down the hall. Side by side. He didn’t bother to slow his stride for her. But her long legs kept pace with him, even as she cradled her arm against her chest. The x-ray room was dark, and she hesitated before entering with the strange man alone. 

“You can have a seat for a moment,” Sandor offered, pointing to the clinical x-ray table. “I have a few questions.” 

“Of course,” she agreed, hugging herself tighter. 

“Ms. Stark, can you tell me how you injured yourself? And where is the majority of your pain located?” He pulled out a pen to jot her answers. He internally cursed at himself, and focused on the requisition in hand, anything but see that look of pity many women sent his way. 

“It was my fault. Up too late studying and tripped into the door on the way to the bedroom,” her voice was even, and the story blatantly rehearsed. “The pain is mostly in my shoulder, some in the humerus.” 

“Have you injured that shoulder before? Any prior surgeries I should be aware of?” 

“I’ve dislocated it before, no surgeries.” She swallowed. Sandor glanced up from the paperwork. It was a morbid thought, but he couldn’t help but notice that the red puffiness around her eyes nearly matched the hue of her hair. And not only that, but her eyes were trained on him, on his face to be exact.

“You got your fill?” he growled lowly, setting the paper and pen on the counter by the control panel. “Pretty sight, isn’t it?” 

Sandor expected the girl to look abashed, to stare at her lap, to apologize. But her eyes turned icy, and a shiver went down his spine. “I’ve seen worse,” she snapped sharply.

“Bet you have,” Sandor snorted. The icy look didn’t melt away from his insinuation. “Are you wearing a bra?” 

“Excuse me?!” she squeaked. 

“A bra,” he repeated slowly. Trying to push away the images of what she had hidden beneath that sweater. Lace? Silk? She was too pretty for plain cotton. “The snaps and adjusters will appear on the film.” 

“Just a tank top,” she elaborated hesitantly.

“And any chance of pregnancy?” 

“No,” she replied after a pause. Her face flushed a deep pink, exposing a thin pale scar that extended from her ear to the crease of her nose. 

Sandor arched his brow. “You’re sure?” 

“Positive.” 

“Alright, stand against the board and face toward me,” he signaled. He went to offer his hand, but she ignored it and stood resolutely as he rolled a lead shield in front of her. “Are you able to bring you hand down and have your palm face up?” 

Sansa shook her head. “You should just start with the y-view, I-I’m pretty sure it’s either broken or dislocated.”

Sandor paused as he watched her position herself at an angle against the board. “Are you an x-ray tech?”

“I didn’t finish the program,” she bit out as he adjusted her slightly, his large hands making her seem even more delicate than the oversized sweater. “Quit a month before graduation.” 

“Why?” he asked over his shoulder as he slid behind the glass lead window, finger on the exposure switch.

She huffed slightly, “Car accident, pretty extensive recovery and therapy that followed.”

“Uh-huh.” His voice seeped sarcasm. He cut her off before she could continue her excuse. “Hold your breath.” 

The familiar beep ended. Sansa took a shallow breath and winced as she did so. “It’s true.” 

“Sure it is, princess.” He looked at the image that popped on the digital monitor. She had a clear anterior dislocation. And he could see a thick corded area just beneath the humeral head where a break hadn’t healed correctly. “Well, it’s not broken, but definitely dislocated. Won’t make you do another view.” 

“Thanks,” she snapped, she started toward the door. “I can find my way back to my room.” 

Sandor stopped mid-step, but changed his mind and body blocked the door. He leaned his face close to hers, uncaring if she flinched. “You’d be smart to stop lying and report your bloody boyfriend. It’s only going to get worse.” 

Sansa frowned. “Thank you for your advice, ser, but I don’t have a boyfriend. Goodnight.” 

******

 

Two weeks later to the date, and Sandor glanced up from his book to see an order for a twenty year old female, this time x-rays for the left hand and wrist. 

He printed off the requisition quickly and picked up his pace down the hall, past the cackling in CT, nearly bowling over a CNA as he headed to the triage unit. 

Sandor Clegane was not a soft man, he might notice a pretty woman here or there…and never make a move. But just the sight of her red hair from across the hall made his heart beat from his chest to his ears, a relentless drumming. He’d never had feet that tapped to the rhythm of a song, yet his feet moved on their own accord to his heart’s strings thrumming.

“Back again,” he observed, watching her intently as she refused to turn toward him. “Like my company so much?”

Sansa let out a bitter laugh. “More than you’d imagine.” She turned, her face was red and streaked with tears, her mascara left trails of black. “Do you need my name and date of birth?” 

Sandor clenched his jaw as he looked at her over shrewdly. Her hand was grotesquely swollen, three fingers nearly black with bruising. He didn’t need an x-ray to see the odd angles of her fingers. “No. February 22nd, 1995. Sansa Stark. Follow me.” He paused for a moment. “Anything besides your hand that needs to be looked at?” 

“Not today.” 

Sandor scowled as they walked side by side toward the radiology hall. He saw the CT girls standing in the hall, waiting for their inevitable arrival. Their smirks were as obnoxious and bright as the artificial lights that lit their environment.

“Beauty and the Beast,” one stage whispered loudly.

Sandor turned on his heel and strode with his limp until he towered over the snide tech. “Mind your own fucking business,” he snarled, his rasping voice never rose over a threating whisper. The girl’s mouth gaped as she got a close up of his face. 

He turned away and gently held the corner of Sansa’s elbow to steer her toward the x-ray room. He opened the heavy lead door, extending his arm to allow Sansa to pass first. The faint smell of lemons assaulted him as she brushed by him, her hair gently bounced with each step. 

“They’re very rude,” Sansa commented as she pulled a chair to edge of the x-ray table. She perched on the very edge, her back as straight as a board. 

“But right in their fucking assessment,” Sandor grunted as he pulled the digital cassette from the bucky. He lifted her hand delicately by the wrist where the bruising ceased, sliding the cassette under before laying her hand down just as gently. “Cunts all the same though.” 

He expected her to gasp at his coarseness, to say she’d report him to his superior. Instead, her eyes narrowed at him. 

“You’re no beast, Sandor Clegane,” she barked, her voice raw from crying, but strong. “People like those women ae the animals.” 

Sandor snorted. “Whatever you say, little bird. Chirp chirp chirp. No need to defend me.” He practically threw his lead marker on the board beside her hand. “Should be defending your damn self.” 

“I’m a wolf, not a bird,” she dismissed coldly.

“Could’ve fooled me.” He straightened his back and crossed his arm. “What’s the story this time? Or are you going to start telling me the truth?” 

The girl worried her lip, even as she looked up at him with that icy glare. “It was an accident –“ 

“Just stop,” Sandor cut her off. “I can smell a lie, and you’re a shite liar.” 

“Fine,” Sansa confessed snidely. “Slammed it in the hood of the car when I went to check the oil level. The support rod wasn’t placed correctly. Write that for your patient history.” 

“Whatever you say.” He stepped behind the control booth. “Little bird.” 

Sansa Stark could barely maneuver her hand for the rest of the images. She was about to walk out the door, wordlessly with two broken fingers and three fractured metacarpals when his voice stopped her.

“It isn’t going to stop.” 

He watched as her shoulders tensed, but slumped sharply before leaving him in her wake. 

***********

 

Four more weeks passed before Sandor saw her name appear once more on his patient roster. Just past midnight, and his heart tightened with fear. And it shamed him, but he felt an unfamiliar anticipation balloon within him. 

He was attracted to the poor, foolish girl. 

This time, Sandor had to bring her by wheelchair to the x-ray room. Her legs were encased in skin-tight leggings, making them seem even remarkably longer than the first time he’d stared at them, as she had walked away from him. She wore slip on sandals, despite that winter was coming, and fall already had a strong grasp in the southern part of Westeros. 

Sansa’s hand was still protected by a hefty white cast that went halfway up her forearm. Her finger tips barely peaked beyond the waterproof plaster. 

“You’re going to tell me the damned truth this time, little bird?” he demanded quietly, practically pleading with his eyes as he knelt in front of her wheelchair. 

She lifted her chin despite the act it quivered with unshed tears. “I can’t.” She swallowed hard. “I can’t.” 

Sandor sighed and scooped her from the seat in one swift move. She winced, and bit back the cry of pain as he set her on the poorly cushioned x-ray table. 

“You’re running out of excuses,” he rasped, his voice even. He adjusted her leg on the table for the first view. “And time.” She didn’t respond, only whimpered as his hand brushed the underside of her calf. 

“I know,” she whispered just before he hit the expose switch.

Sandor and Sansa finished the examination with only silence between them. He set her back into the chair, the touch of her hands fire even with his scrubs as a barrier. He knelt in front of her once more, shyly bringing a hand up to her face, slowly in case she flinched from an unwanted touch. 

“You could report him. I’ll have a cop here in less than two minutes,” he offered sincerely. In reality, Sandor wished he knew the bastard’s name so he could show up with at his door with two clenched fists, or better yet, his military glock. 

“You don’t understand. I can’t.” her eyes were wide, and her encased hand reached up to hold his hand against her face. “I wish I could, truly.” 

He shook his head and jerked his hand away. There was always a choice, and the girl was fucking dumb enough to repeatedly choose wrong. He pushed her back to her room with his jaw clenched painfully tight and left her in the sterile environment without another word. 

**************

Sandor sat at his desk with his face in his hands. It had been six weeks since Sansa Stark had left with battered legs and no excuse to how it had happened. 

His mind reeled at the possibilities. Had she left her abuser and made a fresh start? Was she lying dead in the Kingswood? Her body discarded like Sunday’s trash?

His thoughts continued to grow darker, until his computer made the familiar cuckoo noise, indicating a new stat order from the ER doctor. 

‘Sansa Stark,’ her name practically jumped from the screen at him. He glanced once – twice, and didn’t bother printing the requisition before jogging down the hall. 

The woman was in a stretcher, her hand cast gone and replaced with a soft splint. But the entire side of her face was molted with weeks old bruising. Her long freely hanging hair did little to hide the signs of abuse. Sandor knew that shortcoming better than anyone.

“Little bird,” he greeted lowly. “Are you able to walk?” 

She shook her head. “I’ve been short of breath the last few days, and the walking doesn’t seem to help.” She raised her lips in what he assumed was meant to be a smile, except it came across as a weak grimace. 

“Hence the rib x-rays ordered,” he growled. 

The stretcher squeaked all the way to the x-ray room. He could hear the CT girls tsk quietly to one another. At least this time, they were smart enough to keep to their work space and not wander into the hall. 

Sandor resorted to doing the x-rays in the stretcher. Not the best images, but he loathed to have her cry out because of his touch, even if unintended. 

He frowned at the images. She had two clearly fractured ribs. It was no longer she struggled to breathe, or move for that matter. 

“You’re not going back to that bastard.” He approached the side of the gurney. He pointed sharply to the x-ray images visible from the portable machine he’d brought into the room. “Tell me you’re not fucking going back.” 

She looked sharply at him after glaring at the images on the monitor. “I have to.” 

“But you don’t!” he half pleaded, his voice broke half way though the protest. “You could run. Go to your family, or –“ 

“I don’t have family,” she retorted. “I don’t have the means to run. And it wouldn’t matter if I did. He would find me.” 

“So it is a he.” 

“You already knew that.” 

Sandor growled, but he tore a piece of paper from the nearby printer and yanked a pen from his pocked, scrawling something against the palm of his massive hand. 

He tried to press it into her hands, but she fisted them close.

“I don’t need a helpline,” she protested harshly. “I don’t need anything.” 

“It’s my damned cell,” he corrected her assumption bluntly. He pried open her fingers to drop the slip of paper in. “Next time you’re in trouble, or if you decide enough is enough, call me.” He swallowed hard. “I’ll come –“ 

“You’ll what?” she mocked harshly. “If he found your number, I’m afraid to even contemplate what he’d do to punish me. And even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.” 

“Why not?” he demanded. “I could help.” 

“I don’t have a phone,” she explained with defeat, the little fight she had slipping with the pain and the meds that kicked in. “So I can’t.” 

Sandor blinked and bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. “Don’t go back then. You could crash at my house ‘til you’re on your feet. I know it’s not ideal, and I’m not something most people want to look at on a daily basis-“ 

“First off, I could look at your face every day of my life and never get tired of it,” she stopped him. “But I couldn’t ever take your offer, and not because of you.” 

“You could then,” he insisted, both hands on her face, barely any pressure on her bruised side. “If you don’t, you’ll end up right back here, or worse, you’ll end up –“ 

“End up dead?” she finished the thought for him. “I know what’s in store for me. Don’t take me for a fool, Sandor Clegane.” 

“Just tell me, what keeps you going back to him? Pride? Is that it? Hope he’s going to change? He won’t. I know the type, better than you know.” 

“It isn’t pride. And I know he won’t change. And I know how this will end.” She breathed out harshly, wincing at the action. Her face flushed as he pulled his hands back. “He has power. People in his pocket. The police, the courts. No one would believe me. And he would use those people to find me and drag me back kicking and screaming.” She placed her hand over his as he rested it on the rail. “You’re a good man. Don’t waste time and energy worrying over me. I’m a lost cause.” 

“Fine,” he retorted. “My mistake. Nothing but a bird.” 

He took her back to the ER without a word, and left in silence. Inside, he was screaming. Not at the abused girl that had turned him down. But at himself. For not making her choose correctly. For saving her life. 

********

Four weeks later, Sandor was half asleep at home at three in the afternoon. He had the overnight shift as he always did, excluding him from an on-call schedule. He frowned at the sight of his only friend’s number paging him an emergency 9-1-1 to the hospital. No explanation. 

“Dumped at the ER doors like a piece of Sunday trash,” one of the nurses confided to the other one. 

The second girl leaned closer. “And all she could say was the burned tech’s name. Over and over and over until they got her to surgery.”

“Extreme trauma case. Blunt force trauma to the chest, not to mention every other part of her body beaten bloody or cut or burned. A walking scar.”

“Maybe that’s why she wants him…” 

Sandor felt that familiar rage fill his chest. The rage he felt on the battlefield, in the bars after he lost his leg. But this was worse. He was a man, a target that couldn’t be penetrated. Sansa. Gods, Sansa was an angel, she didn’t deserve any of this. Not one fucking iota. He walked away before he’d do something he’d regret later.

Sandor could see as he got closer to the room that her eyes were slowly blinking, probably only half aware from the max amounts of morphine they pumped into her. The oxygen was being fed through tubs in her nose. A gash went across her face, a streak of fire against the immense swelling. Her arms were more purple than skin. 

“Sandor,” she breathed as he approached her side. “You were right, I should have…” 

“Sh, Sansa,” he stopped her apology. It’ll be fine now, you’ll see.” Her lips faintly moved up in the barest ghost of a smile at the sound of his voice. 

She tried to sit up as he pulled the chair over. But his hand gently pressed her shoulder back, forcing her into the cheap plastic pillows the hospital had to offer. 

“Rest.” His hand moved to hold her finger tips. They were clammy, but the only part of her that seemed to be uncovered by bandages. “Have you finally had enough?”

“Of being a human punching bag or knife target?” she mocked. “Yes.” 

“Of me?’ he asked. “Because my offer still stands.” He coughed as she opened her mouth, no words emitted. “You’ll need help when you recover. I know you said you don’t have family…” 

Sansa pursed her lips for a moment, but never took her eyes from him. Not his scars, but him. His eyes. His face as a whole. “I don’t want you to suffer because you helped me. If he found me with yout…” 

Sandor cut her off with a solid chuckle. “He’d wish he hadn’t.” 

“Is that so?” 

Sandor only nodded. 

********************

 

Sansa groaned in frustration as she struggled to move herself from the oversized leather couch. It was built for a giant, like Sandor Clegane. And it sucked her in like a vacuum. She wouldn’t complain though, not as she was surrounded by his scent. Leather, pine, and the faintest hint of aftershave. 

She looked around his house, wondering when it had stopped being unfamiliar to her. When it had started feeling like home. So different from anywhere else she had lived in her past. She woke up these days and smiled rather than cried. 

Her hands worked on things she enjoyed, rather than trying to fix her injuries with only the help of a first aid kit. She loved the feeling of her hands in the soil, as she planted a spring garden. Her eyes crinkled at the corners when she caught sight of the paint embedded in the creases of her fingernails. 

Sometimes, she woke up and went straight to the bathroom, quietly shutting and locking the door behind herself. She tried not to wake Sandor after his overnight shifts at the hospital in Wintertown Emergency Medical Center. She stared at the mirror. She ignored the dark circles under her eyes. Instead, she focused on the scars. They were scattered over her body, a physical trail of her history she was incapable of forgetting. Then there were the new ones, that were faint and silvery, almost pretty in the patterns they created. She even smiled at her reflection occasionally, uncaring of the thick roped scar that marred one cheek.

But right now she was frustrated and downright uncomfortable. 

That was until the door opened into the living room and was filled with Sandor Clegane. He rarely smiled, but his mouth twitched as he caught sight of her and he didn’t bother to close the door in his wake, allowing the spring air to rush in. 

His hands were warm against hers as he hauled her to her feet. Without a second thought, they moved to cup her swollen belly, a basketball beneath the bright sundresses she had taken to wearing, the only thing she could fit into these last weeks in the pregnancy. 

Sansa sighed against his mouth as he kissed her firmly. 

Sandor Clegane had saved her. After the nightmares, when her eyes were blurred and her mind still fuzzy with sleep, she'd sit straight up, chest heaving, fearful of what the day held for her. But a heavy arm around her middle, his rasp in her ear was enough to bring her heart rate down, to bring her back to the present. Years had passed since he’d run with her from Kingslanding to the Northern Kingdom, helped her recover. He’d mended her, physically and emotionally. He’d helped her finish radiology school. And somewhere along the way, she had fallen completely, madly in love with him.


End file.
